D--Data Extraction-AZ Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

The Department of Veterans Affairs, VA West Haven Healthcare System, has a requirement for data extraction for research purposes. A fixed price contract of approximately 5 years is anticipated and shall be awarded. It is the Government's belief that Appriss, Inc. of Louisville, KY possesses the required capabilities to successfully meet this requirement. This vendor is the vendor for the Arizona Prescription Drug Monitoring Program and is thus the only vendor capable of obtaining the data. This is not a sources sought announcement or a solicitation. This notice is advising the public of the Government's intent to issue a sole-source solicitation and award to this vendor. Inquiries/information received after the established deadline (July 19, 2016) shall not be considered. The submission of any data for review shall not impede award of this contract as planned. The Government does not intend to pay for information solicited. This synopsis is issued pursuant to FAR 6.302-1. Statement of Work Appriss, Inc. (Arizona State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) 1.0 Introduction The purpose of this contract is to obtain a list of Veterans residing in Arizona who have received and haven't received a Veterans' Choice Act card, enabling them to obtain medical care from non-VA providers, paid for by the VA. Appriss, Inc. will match identifying information from this list of Veterans who have/ have not received a VCA card to data in the Arizona State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PMP). Appriss, Inc. will provide detailed prescription data for all cohort participants requested for which they have data. 2.0 Background In examining potential dual use of opioids and other controlled substances in- and outside- VA, it is critically important that we have accurate pharmacy information. Arizona, as we have learned through our collaboration with Dr. Peter Kreiner of the State Prescription Monitoring Center of Excellence, has a state-of-the-art data querying system that is both high fidelity and offers maximal privacy. Appriss Inc. is a data management vendor/contract that provides a flat rate for data management and high-fidelity data query services for Arizona state board of pharmacy. 3.0 Scope The overarching goal is to assess the impact of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014 (VCA) on appropriateness of opioid therapy. Specific Aims include: 1. To establish feasibility of identifying VCA participants in PMP databases of states in which VA facilities already contribute data. 2. To develop the process and architecture for linking patient-level PMP data with VHA Electronic Health Record (EHR) pharmacy data available in the VHA National Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW). 3. To perform a pilot, matched cohort study of Veterans enrolled in VCA and, power permitting, perform propensity-matched survival analysis modeling time-to-event for three different patient-level outcomes (a, b and c) with VCA participation as the primary covariate of interest: a. 25% or greater increase in morphine equivalent daily dose (MEDD), comparing pre- to post-VCA; b. Opioid dose crossing the 200 mg MEDD threshold, comparing pre- to post-VCA; and c. Receipt of benzodiazepine co-therapy, comparing pre- to post-VCA. 4. To characterize the number and types of private providers seeing VCA enrollees, the number of VCA enrollees per provider and to explore whether prescribing behavior differs among providers with higher numbers of VCA enrollees. 4.0 Performance Requirements As the contractor, Appriss, Inc. (contracted vendor for Prescription Drug Monitoring Program as part of the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy) performs a very specialized task for which they have a well-established protocol. The services required from Appriss, Inc. include the following: 1. Obtain a list from Dr. William Becker, of Veterans residing in Arizona who have received a Veterans' Choice Act (VCA) card, enabling them to obtain medical care from non-VA providers, paid for by the VA. The list will provide each Veteran's name, birthdate, gender, and street address for purposes of matching with data from Arizona's prescription monitoring program (PMP). The list will also provide a project-specific code for each Veteran. 2. Appriss Inc. employees will match this list with patients in Arizona's PMP, using PMP data from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015. Appriss will create a data set that provides prescription-level PMP data on the matched patients only. The data set will be de-identified in that patient-identifying information will be removed, and the project-specific patient code provided by the VA retained; prescriber- and pharmacy-identifying information will be removed and a project-specific identifier will be inserted for each unique prescriber and pharmacy. Prescriber and pharmacy zip code will also be retained. Information about each prescription will be retained, including date prescription was written, date dispensed, NDC number, name of drug, dosage strength, and days' supply. Information about payment source, if captured in Arizona's PMP, will also be retained. 3. Dr. William Becker will send another list to Appriss Inc. of Veterans residing in Arizona who have not received a Veterans' Choice Act card. Veterans in this list will have been matched as closely as possible to those in the Veterans' Choice Act list (in #1 above). 4. As in step #2, Appriss employees will match this second list of Veterans with patients in the PMP, using PMP data from January 1 - December 31, 2015. Appriss will provide a de-identified data set corresponding to that described in #2. 5. Appriss Inc. will provide the two data sets to the Connecticut VA Principal Investigator (Dr. William Becker) for further analysis behind the VA firewall. 5.0 Deliverables Appriss Inc. provides an estimate for how long the data retrieval will take. We will maintain email contact with Appriss Inc. to verify that task completion is on schedule.